In FY 2018 the federal government spent
$988 billion on Social Security.

Social Security Spending Analysis

This page shows the current trends in Social Security spending
on the OASI and DI programs. There are also charts on OASI and DI spending history. See
here for a general history of entitlement spending. See
here for spending forecast from latest OASDI Trustees Report.

Recent Social Security Spending

Social Security spending has been increasing steadily every year. Back in 2005 Old Age
Survivor Insurance (OASI) spending was about $440 billion a year, and
Disability Insurance (DI) spending was about $90 billion a year. By 2015 OASI had increased
to $750 billion and DI to $150 billion.

Viewed from a GDP perspective, Social Security spending has been pretty stable. In 2005
spending was 4 percent of GDP. By 2015 it had increased to about 5 percent GDP.

US Social Security Spending Since 1935

Social Security Program Growth

Social Security, the federal old-age pension program, was passed in 1935 in time for the 1936
presidential election. The first old-age benefits were distributed in 1938.

Social Security benefits were modest in the early years and did not exceed one percent of GDP until
1955. But the program cost increased rapidly, reaching 2.2 percent of GDP in 1960.

Benefit increase slowed somewhat in the 1960s, reaching 3.2 percent in 1971. Costs increased again in
the early 1970s before peaking at 4.81 percent in 1983.

Social Security benefits as a percent of GDP slowly declined for the rest of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s
down to a low of 4.0 percent of GDP in 2005. But the Great Recession o 2007-09 bumped Social Security
up to 4.72 percent of GDP in 2010. Costs are expected to breach 5 percent of GDP in 2018.

Social Security Disability Insurance Growth

The Social Security Disability Insurance Program was enacted in the 1950s and payments began in 1958. Eligibility requirements relaxed in the 1980s.

Starting from zero in 1957 Social Security’s Disability Insurance program reached 0.5 percent of GDP in 1975.

Peaking at 0.55 percent of GDP in the early 1980s, payments declined to a low of 0.43 percent in 1990.
But then payments increased, breaching 0.5 percent of GDP in 1993 and 0.6 percent of GDP in 2002. DI reached 0.7 percent
of GDP in 2006 and peaked at 0.85 percent of GDP in 2011-13; DI spending is expected to decline to 0.76 percent of GDP by 2019.

On October 15, 2018, the US Treasury reported in its Monthly Treasury Statement (and xls) for September that the federal deficit for FY 2018 ending September 30, 2018, was $779 billion. Here are the numbers, including total receipts, total outlays, and deficit compared with the numbers projected in the FY 2019 federal budget published in February 2018:

Federal Finances
FY 2018 Outcomes

Budget
billions

Outcome
billions

Receipts

$3,340

$3,329

Outlays

$4,130

$4,108

Deficit

$833

$779

usgovernmentspending.com now shows the new numbers for total FY 2018 total outlays and receipts on its Estimate vs. Actual page.

The Monthly Treasury Statement includes "Table 4: Receipts of the United States Government, September 2018 and Other Periods." This table of receipts by source is used for usgovernmentspending.com to post details of federal receipt actuals for FY 2018.

This FTS report on FY 18 actuals is a problem for usgovernmentspending.com because this site uses Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction from the Budget of the United States as its basic source for federal subfunction outlays. But the Monthly Treasury Statement only includes "Table 9. Summary of Receipts by Source, and Outlays by Function of the U.S. Government, September 2018 and Other Periods". Subfunction amounts don't get reported until the FY20 budget in February 2019. Until then usgovernmentspending.com estimates actual outlays by "subfunction" for FY 2018 by factoring subfunction budgeted amounts for FY18 by the ratio between relevant actual and budgeted "function" amounts where actual outlays by subfunction cannot be gleaned from the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Final detailed FY 2018 actuals will not appear on usgovernmentspending.com until the FY 2020 federal budget is published in February 2019 with the actual outlays for FY 2018 in Historical Table 3.2--Outlays by Function and Subfunction.